I'm not a fan in a rock concert, you see. I am a political leader in a great nation of the world. What interests me are France's interests.

The Americans are trying to expand their influence in the world, particularly in Europe. They are defending their own interests, not ours.

Germany has become the economic heart of Europe because our leaders are weak. But Germany should never forget that France is Europe's political heart. What is happening here today foreshadows what will happen in the rest of Europe in the coming years: the great return of the nation-state, which they wanted to obliterate.

I do not support Putin against Europe. This is a caricature. I support a federalist Ukraine. The EU poured fuel on the fire by proposing an economic partnership to a country known to look half to the East and half to the West.

I'll tell you what the danger is for Europe. It's carrying out a cold war against Russia and pushing Russia into China's arms. That's the threat to Europe.

Europe is war. Economic war. It is the increase of hostilities between the countries. Germans are denigrated as being cruel, the Greeks as fraudsters, the French as lazy. Ms. Merkel can't travel to any European country without being protected by hundreds of police. That is not brotherhood.

It is undeniable that the French were in a better situation in 1960s then than they are today in 2017. I don't look in the rearview mirror. But there was no need for us to experience an end to social progress since then.